Work capability assessment, I scored 0 points.

Those UC calcs are very confusing i my opinion.

The first calc link:

Me entering zero wages, wife entering 35 hrs at £7.50, it gives a very confusing result.

Under "How much better off am I in work under Universal Credit" it tells me I am £547.92 better off in work a month compared to the £498.89 I will receive out of work.

That's £115 a week, more than the ESA + Support which totalled £108 per week

But it's very confusing. As I said, I entered 0 for my earnings and min wage for wifes.

On the next page it says

Your gross household earnings are £1137.50
The estimated amount you would take home is £1046.61
You would be better off in work every month by £547.92

Then on a page called "Compare Universal Credit and the future" it has two green bar graphs both saying exactly the same thing. First titled "Universal Credit" second titled "Future", and shows my wifes estimated take home pay, and if I hover on it, it says (Partners net earnings)

On the "compare current system and the future"page it has two identical bars, one called "current system" the other called "Future", both have a part in Orange £398.33 that if I hover over says (working tax credits) and both have a part in green saying £1046.81 that if I hover over say (Partners net earnings) and both total £1445.14

That implies I get £0 Universal credit but we do get £398.33 working tax credit.

bearing in mind we were getting £32 a month working tax credit but am now receiving zero as they said they had overpaid us and we now owe them, this doesn't make much sense at all

My wifes profit last year works out at less than minimum wage if you take all the ours she worked.

Seems we are going to be pretty screwed and will probably end up loosing our house as if we do receive nothing, we cant afford our mortgage (which is less than it would cost to rent a place)

My wife is so stressed over this that she looks really ill. She commented yesterday words along the lines of "if this is stressing me out this much, I'd hate to think what its doing to you"

Looking into this in more depth, it appears I am completely screwed.

Presuming I've worked this out right, it appears the following is true.


From what I see, we loose 63p for every £ one of us earns.

I am entitled to £489.89 basic UC.

489.99 divided by 63p equals £777

That means if my wife earns £777.00 a month I get nothing.

104 hrs at £7.50 equals £780.

So if my wife works 104 hrs a month (or 24 hrs a week) I get nothing.

Our work allowance will either be 0, or as I am limited in what I can do, presuming they decide I'm allowed in that bracket, £397 per month.

If I'm allowed £397 per month, that equals £4794 a year.

My wifes yearly earnings are £13659 a year or £1137 a month. Take off a work allowance of £397 leaves £740 a month

£740 times 63p equals £466.20.

£489.99 minus£466.20 means even if I get the full work allowance, we will only receive £23,79 a month or £5.49 a week

That will be taken up by parking fees etc when I have to go in.

If that is the case, we will probably end up loosing our house even though our mortgage is a lot less than it costs to rent, as we will not have the money to pay everything.

For the sake of £23 a month and the job centre visits and the extra hours my wife has to put on keeping separate self employed logs, it probably isn't even worth it.

We're screwed anyway

Wifes monthly take home and my £23 equals £1160 a month

Mortgage £480 (80% paid in 7 years where it will go down to £100 a month)
water £43
Council £126
Electric £124
Build and cont insurance £26
TV License £12
Life insurance £36
Road tax £12
Car insurance £42
Internet/mobiles £66 (3 mobiles, all on cheapest tariff, one for son)
£11 pre paid prescription cert (11 a month for me)

I'm already at £978 which only leaves £182 and I haven't started on food (due to health reasons, I cant eat any chicken, processed foods, dried pasta etc meaning our food bill is higher than most)

We have petrol/parking/car servicing (will need a new tyre soon, budget one will be £55)
Food toiletries/cleaning
Clothing and footware
Emergencies
Any house repairs
Dog insurance/food

So if we say our food is a whopping (impossible) £25 a week thats another £108 per month.

We are now left with £74

We haven't even got any petrol yet, or clothes etc
I also HAVE to go swimming a few times a week in order to exercise my legs at the advice of surgeon and Physio, cheapest way was to join local health club at £35 a month as its much cheaper than paying the local council run pool to go 3 times a week.

I am now down to £39 without petrol, clothes, emergencies etc

My dog has to have injections every month for life, hence can not change his pet plan insurance, and that leaves us with nothing. without petrol, clothes and presuming we can feed ourselves on £25 a week.

Waits for some insensitive git to tell me to get rid of him, the one thing that keeps a smile on my face everyday..

I am now at the point of thinking why bother, I'm screwed whatever I do.

I think I'm grasping it.

I was in the support group and am sure its contribution based.

Are you saying if I claim UC and win my ESA appeal, the ESA will be paid through UC, meaning I'll lose the lot?

Hence thats why I should cease my claim?

If all I'm getting is £5 a week, then I might as well cease the claim as to be honest, that amount will make zero difference to my debts and with the extra work it will make for my wife, she might as well put her prices up by 50p which will more than cover it, and us not have to bother with it all.

But I want to make sure I have my figures right.

I spoke to CAB, they came up also with £0 but said they cant see that being right, they then tried another site and said it came up the same but then said UC is new and because my wifes self employed, maybe this is confusing the calcs.

Which is why I tried it today with her both self employed, and employed and got the same result.

I asked the job centre if they could tell me what we are likely to get and they said they couldn't but there are online calcs.

What I don't want to do is cancel my UC if I've worked it out completely wrong and I will get £70 plus a week on it

I've had detailed debt advice from stepchange and am on a dmp, now on token payments only due to this mess.

Selling the house is not even being considered as it will mean we've (well my wife) has worked all our lives for nothing.

In 7 years time it drops to £100 (main mortgage is paid off)

Compare that with the fact that to rent now, costs at least £100 more a month than our mortgage currently is, having that over our heads for the rest of our lives, well it isn't going to happen.

Plus if we did sell, we would have over £6000 of assets hence wouldn't get a penny until they were used up etc.

Maybe we could get divorced then I would just be buying my house with a friend and could claim on my own

I did understand most of what you said, including the bit about what qualifies for ESA. There were many things I pointed out in my 17 page appeal that should give me points, had the assessor really explained what I was like rather than making unfounded and in many cases 100% wrong assumptions.

Reading my medical report, there was a LOT that was completely wrong. For example (I do understand what you said in an earlier post that this wont help me qualify for ESA, just pointing out how wrong some of the report is), according to the report, I can flex my knees to the normal amount, bending them 120 degrees and can squat fine.

I cant bend my right one more than 90 degrees and my left one more than 100. Had she even bothered to measure this, she would have seen this. I have to use a disabled toilet when out due to them not bending and me being unable to sit on a normal toilet seat (one at home is raised). She says I have zero problems squatting down, this is a physical impossibility for me to do.

I saw my knee surgeon a couple of weeks ago he said that was the best they were going to get.

There were numerous other things that should score me points that I don't really want to go into, especially things concerning my depression and how I interact with others.

completely wrong

Well that went well.

Just put the following into my UC Journal

---

This is also being cc'd to my MP. the Prime Minister, The health minister and the opposition leader.

Well that was the biggest waste of my time, all I can say is the lady I saw should not have her job, I haven't met someone that arrogant and aggressive in manner in a long time.

She had an aggressive tone the second I sat down.

I have numerous health problems, unable to handle stress and unable to control myself (verbally) when faced with people being rude or talking down to me or not listening to me is one of the things my health problems cause.

In the end I stood up said "this is a waste of time, I'm going as I'm about to explode".

My wife was with me, in the 33 years we've been together, I've known her to really loose her temper 3 times. She's the most laid back, help anyone type of person you could ever meet.

After walking out, in the elevator to the ground floor, I said to my wife

"Sorry darling, I had to leave, else I would have sworn at her"

To which my wife replied

"I'm not surprised, I was about to swear at her myself"

And for her to say that, says something. She is a mobile hairdresser with full books, and I guarantee you every single one of her clients would back me up on how laid back she is.

Anyway, on to my appointment.

It appears from all the online calculators, speaking to citizens advice etc, that I am going to end up with zero

I printed out and showed the lady a government page where it says I am entitled to £498.89 a month but it goes down by 63p in the £1 for everything my wife earns.

I pointed out that that means if my wife works for 24 hrs a week at min wage, I get nothing.

Every appointment I have, my wife has to take time off work. Every appointment she has, she has to take time off work, and there's little point if we are going to get nothing.

The lady said that everyones circumstances are different and I will find out on something like 28th July, I said that we would only get the basic UC credit and my wife works 35 hrs a week, surely there's someone who can tell me, or a number to ring, I was told no, I have to wait until the end of July.

I asked her if I'm right on my assumption on what I printed out from the government web page, she couldn't tell me and apparently no one else there could either.

So I said I'd carry on for now and see what happens.

She said that I need a fit note from my GP.

I said I haven't got one and I have spoken to my GP just last week about my ability to work and she said that technically I am able to work, but with all the things wrong with me, it's going to be very very hard for me to find a job I can actually do.

In other words, I might find it tomorrow, it might take two years.

The lady said that in that case, I'm considered fit for work.
I said that was not true and while I didn't score enough points to get ESA (which I'm appealing) they still admitted I had various health issues

I read out to her part of the form ESA sent me, they say quote "Your work capability assessment shows that although you may have an illness, health condition or disability, you are now capable of doing some work. We realise this may not be the same type of work you have done before. WE CAN HELP YOU IDENTIFY TYPES OF WORK YOU CAN DO, TAKING INTO CONSIDERATION ANY ILLNESS, HEALTH CONDITIONS or disability you may have"

I spent HOURS preparing for this interview, I even made up a CV that I wanted advice on (interview didn't get that far). I had a list of all the things that prevent me from doing most jobs. And I also had a list of two pages from Indeed web site for jobs in Great Yarmouth, showing how and why every job on those two pages I couldn’t physically do.

I started reading out to her what I couldn’t do,

I said my upper back causes headaches for 2 to 3 days" and thats as far as I got before she snapped at me to stop and tells me she doesn’t want to know.

I said "how can you help me get a job if you don’t know what I can and can't do"

She responded along the lines of "it's not our job to find you a job, you have to do that. I'm not a doctor. Your focusing on the negatives, tell me what job you want to do"

I said along the lines of "well if I don't tell you things like I cant stand for more than 5 mins, you will think I'm capable of doing any job that requires this"

She again said it's not her that finds me a job, I find myself a job, which is exactly the opposite of what the letter stopping my ESA said would happen.

She then asked me again what I wanted to do.

I replied "I will do anything that I'm capable of doing with my health issues".

She said "I can't put down 'anything', you need to tell me what you want to do" (I always thought we were encouraged to take any job we could do?)

I said "I don't know what I want to do as I don't know exactly what I can do, any job that I can do I will do"

She said "name a type of job"

I said "I don't know, something sitting down all the time with no lifting involved, where I can take a break if I get a splitting headache and I'm not dealing with the public"

I then said I had gone through Indeed job site making a list of all the jobs on the first two pages to give her examples of why I cant physically do them (this took me a few hours to do), she responded that she's not interested, it's all on the computer (this isn't on the computer at all)

By this time both of us were getting heated.

She said she could arrange another appointment to allow me to think what I want to do.

I said that was pointless as I need help in knowing what I can do.

We went around in circles a few more times, at which point (due to my depression and inability to handle stress) I was about to explode and I simply stood up and said that this is a waste of my time and I'm going.

As I said earlier, I spent a lot of time putting a CV together, getting my health issues listed, and getting an explanation of why I couldn’t do the first two pages of work in Indeeds web site, and it appears I did all this for absolutely nothing.

I need a lot of help and advice in getting a job. I have wanted to work ever since I first became ill 18 years ago, but as my CFS/ME tiredness went after an unrelated operation, I have been raring to go ever since.

However, I have been looking almost every day since Feb this year as I recover from a knee replacement.

So far I haven't come across one job I can physically do with my health issues.

I want to work, I need help getting a job.

Being treated like this isn't helping me or my stress levels. Stress is very bad for me, she has made my stress levels go through the roof and it's only because I was really really trying and concentrating that I didn't blow up and give her a load of verbal abuse (again due to health issues)

The most unhelpful interview I've had for decades, she should be ashamed of herself or the UC should give better training.

Her demeanour compared to all the others I've spoken to there ( 5 different people) was awful.

Going from £108 to £0 a week also means my stress and my wifes stress are going to go through the roof meaning chances are one of us if not both , will end up having a nervous breakdown.

With her earnings, we don't physically earn enough to cover all our bills and mortgage.

Yet there are loads of couples not married, living together, that deny this to be the case and happily get their full benefits when their partners working.

As usual, the married couple loose out.

As usual the honest person looses out.

As usual those that play the system still get a fortune from it.